Pastor Tim’s Blog

ANNIVERSARIES AND REDWOOD FORESTS

 

Cindy and I enjoyed some relaxing days along the California Coast recently.  Along with walking the beach, we also got to take a stroll through a redwood forest.  The trees are so fascinating, so stately and so beautiful—as tall as you can see and wider at the base than most any tree I’ve ever seen!  The way in which they grow in clusters has always fascinated me: small trees sprout up around the mother tree with the roots all intertwined for strength.  It’s the primary reason they last so very long!  And even when the mother tree at the center dies, the sprouts—now tall and strong on their own—have a firm foundation found in the interwoven root system.

 

During our days in California, I was looking for a 60^th anniversary card for my parents.  60 years…Wow!  Our family will all get together next month to celebrate the anniversary together, but as the actual date of the anniversary was approaching, I had hoped to find an appropriate card.  There were cute cards and drippy cards and trendy cards…but none seemed just right!  Then I came upon a card that simply featured a picture on the front of the mighty redwoods, and I decided that was exactly what I was looking for!  I wrote some appropriate words inside and sent it—for there could be no better symbol to celebrate a 60^th wedding anniversary than the tall, stately, incredibly long-living redwoods!

 

I wish I could tell you that all the weddings I’ve performed across the years will last 60 years or more.  One wedding I did imploded during the honeymoon!  Of course, many couples don’t live long enough to celebrate 60 years of marriage, and Mom and Dad are blessed to still have one another.  But death’s not what keeps so many marriages from making it for the long haul.  (And, if you’re one who did all you could do to keep a failing marriage together, and still experienced divorce, please don’t feel beat up by my words.)  Oh, how I long to see more redwood forest kind of marriages!

 

Do you think God wants our marriages to last for a lifetime?  Yep…He sure does!  And do you think He has the power to help us make that happen?  Yep…no doubt about it!  So what’s the problem?  Could it be that too often we’re not letting God work in our lives and in our marriages the way He wants to?  Yep…probably so!  Could it be that we get so consumed with our own selfish desires and ambitions that we lose sight of the needs of our spouse?  Yep…sorry to say!

 

After we’d attended a worship service at a church in California the Sunday we were there, we passed another church whose name hit me like a lightning bolt.  It was called “The Church of Self-Realization.”  Boy!  Does that ever say in a nutshell what’s wrong with our culture!  “Phooey on worshipping God…let’s just worship ourselves!  It’s all about ‘me’ anyway!”  That really bugged me!  And I think that’s exactly why we don’t have more 40^th, and 50^th and even 60^th wedding anniversaries.

 

If you’re married, I pray God will help you and your spouse to make it for the long haul…think (and pray!) in terms of a redwood forest marriage.  God bless you, my friend!